Hunting the Lions

by R. M. Ballantyne

“But you have reason to expect a good deal in this part of the country,” said the major, “if all that is rumoured be true.”

“No doubt there is some truth in what is reported; we shall see. Meanwhile, yonder goes something to encourage us.”

He pointed towards an opening in a thicket close at hand, where an elephant was seen running towards them as if ignorant of their presence.

“Some one must be after that fellow,” said Hicks. About a dozen natives emerged from the thicket as he spoke. They were evidently driving the elephant, which was a large bull, towards the hunters for the purpose of letting them have a good shot; so the latter at once hid themselves. When the elephant drew near it seemed to suspect danger ahead, for it burned to the right when at a distance of about a hundred yards. This was a great disappointment, so the major, rather than be balked altogether, tried a long shot and broke the animal’s fore-leg. Then, running after him at a pace which even the supple natives could not equal, he got close up and sent a ball into his head, which stunned him; but it took four additional shots to kill him.

This was an unusually fortunate case, for elephants are not easily killed. The African elephant is in many respects different from that of India, and is never killed, like the Ceylon elephant, by a single ball in the brain. Dr Livingstone tells us that on one occasion, when he was out with a large party of natives, a troop of elephants were attacked by them, and that one of these, in running away, fell into a hole, and, before he could extricate himself, an opportunity was allowed for all the men to throw their spears. When the elephant rose he was like a huge porcupine, for each of the seventy or eighty men had discharged more than one spear at him. As they had no more, they sent for the Doctor to shoot him. He, anxious to put the animal at once out of pain, went up to within twenty yards, rested his gun on an ant-hill, so as to take steady aim; but though he fired twelve two-ounce bullets, all he had, into different parts, he could not kill it. As it was getting dark, they were obliged to leave it standing there, intending to return in the morning in the full expectation of finding it dead; but though they searched all that day, and went over more than ten miles of ground, they never saw it again!

The female elephant killed by our hunters at this time was a comparatively small one. Its height was eight feet eight inches. Many of those which were afterwards killed were of much greater height. Indian elephants never reach to the enormous size of the African elephant, which is distinguished from that of India by a mark that cannot be mistaken, namely, the ear, which in the African species is enormously large. That of the female just killed measured four feet five inches in length and four feet in breadth. A native has been seen to creep under an elephant’s ear so as to be quite covered from the rain. The African elephant has never been tamed at the Cape, nor has one ever been exhibited in England.

But to return to our hunters. Before that day had closed, the major and his friends had made good bags. The total result of the day’s hunt by both parties was, five sea-cows, four elephants, two buffaloes, a giraffe, and a number of birds of various kinds.

Of course this set the natives of the kraal into a ferment of joyous festivity, and the sportsmen rose very high in their estimation, insomuch that they overwhelmed them with gifts of native produce. Our hero was an especial favourite, because, on several occasions, he turned his medical and surgical knowledge to good account, and afforded many of them great relief from troubles which their own doctors had failed to cure or charm away.

Some time after this, when they were travelling through a comparatively dry district, they encamped near a pool of water, and the sights they saw there were most amazing; for all the animals in the neighbourhood flocked to the pool to slake their burning thirst.

After supper, instead of going to rest, Tom Brown and most of the party resolved to go and watch this pool—the moon being bright at the time. They had not lain long in ambush beside it when a troop of elephants came rushing into it, and began to drink with great avidity, spirting the water over each other and shrieking with delight. For some hours the hunters remained on the watch there, and saw animals of all kinds come down to drink—antelopes, zebras, buffaloes, etcetera, in great numbers.